SNOW DAYS!

Below are some pics from the last few days!

The sidewalk Tuesday night (ice)

The sidewalk Wednesday morning (ice covered with inches of snow)


Interstate 71 on Wednesday morning (I stole the pic from Cincinnati.com).

Thankfully our power lines held up!


Time to scrape the car!


Ding dong the witch is dead!


Why just scrape ice and snow when you can be a play baby too?




All clean (but she's still stuck in the driveway!)..

My backyard...


Dinah and Cala enjoying a lazy snow day...They also enjoy lazy rainy days and lazy sunny days...I guess pretty much any day is a lazy day for them...Hm.


A perfect night for Chipotle with friends!


And a spontaneous outreach courtesy of Panera!



For the whole story and more pics visit REMEDY

Love and Ink

I love that God is totally renewing my life. I am blessed beyond belief with friends and family. I love them all and each mean something priceless to me. I meet every weekend with a group of wild and crazy girls who are passionate for God and do all things from a place of relationship with him. Yesterday we ventured out on a field trip. Come along with us!




Rather than re-write what my friends have so eloquently described in their blogs, I refer you to their linkage.

Kelly:

http://drowninginhisgrace.blogspot.com/2009/01/never-say-never.html


Fran:

http://praisebethepizzasdone.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-am-sooo-not-tattoo-person.html

Secrety Secret!

Tonight feels like Christmas Eve! Tomorrow me and my girlfriends are going on a little field trip to a place in Erlanger and having a girl day! That's all I can say...Only a few people know this secrety secret...It's a fun secret. We'll tell soon...Til then....Hurry Christmas, hurry fast!

Encounter

Last Wednesday I attended another evening at church called ENCOUNTER...It is specifically designed to invite and expect God to "show up" (he's always there but sometimes we humans need that tangibility) and reveal his blessings to people. This last one was the best one so far. There are a whole slew of stories coming in. I had sensed that I might need to "receive" during this one as much as I needed to serve as a prayer team member. This proved to be an accurate sense.

To read some of the encounters you can go to:

www.mostlygodstuff.blogspot.com

Below is my experience.

In recent years, God has made a lot of headway with me in my weak areas which are fear and doubt. Seems odd since one of my spiritual gifts is Faith, but maybe it makes sense since the enemy likes to steal.

Anyway, I still had lingering "voices" that continued to plague me in stuff that I have settled with God and pretty much gotten His say on. Somehow they keep coming back around...When that happens I battle with it thinking "well, maybe it wasn't settled" and then it goes into this whole internal conflict that distracts me and drives me into self-focus. During worship I found myself there, once again, turning it over to God because I was tired of the conflict and was ready to give up my dreams if that's what God was asking of me.

Somewhere in the midst of this intense praying I got a picture of Jesus putting his hand on the back my head and pushing it forward. At first I thought that seemed so rough I was concerned it was the enemy but quickly realized what was going on. In the Sozo ministry we have a tool called a "divine edit" where the minister places a hand on the back of the person's head, asks the Holy Spirit to come in and "edit out" abnormal concepts/beliefs and exhange them with Truth.

Jesus was performing a divine edit on me!

He spoke into my ear, words that flowed like a stream, the truth about me, how He made me, how the things that He'd placed in my life - the people, experiences, etc - had been placed there for a purpose and that they'd all pull together in a way that would amaze me. I needed to stop second guessing and worrying. He trusted me to do what was right, he knew my heart was to please Him, but that I'd also fallen into a religious mindset that placed a lot of fear into my motives. He cleaned all of it up.

I saw angels there with us in that moment. Then the angels were gone and Father God and the Holy Spirit were there. I could only see God's feet. But he was standing next to me. The Holy Spirit was in front of me, placing his forehead against mine if that makes sense. Jesus began sealing up my ears - I guessed so that I would not be able to hear the enemy's lies anymore. YAY!

But then from within my head I heard a solitary, clear voice that undermined all they did and I was afraid that maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see and the voice was actually that of God. But it contradicted everything that had streamed into my mind as the "sozo" was happening. That sent me into more conflict because I then didn't know what to believe or whose voice it was. I was discouraged and thought "This is just never going to end." I felt a dark heaviness in the front of my head that stayed there for most of the rest of the night.

Since I was on the prayer team I set that aside so I could help pray for other people. Later Don called out for anyone who was dealing with "voices" to come up. so I went up. I thought of how many times I had gone for prayer for this crap. Part of me thought "why bother?" But then Don commanded the voices to be gone...FOREVER...

"Forever," I thought sarcastically. "That would be nice."

Then Don clarified "Yes, they can be gone forever". I knew I hadn't spoken outloud so I knew that this was something from God. There was a power, a truth, in those words that was warm and comforting to my spirit. I did NOT have to live like this forever, in this place of confusion. I then felt peace in the area of my head where the "junk" had been. I felt the heaviness lift.

Later, a mild headache began in that area of my head. Knowing that Don has an anointing for dealing with headaches I asked him to pray with me. As he was praying, the headache seemed to move from my forehead to under my eyebrow, like it was trying to escape from under Don's hand. That was when it was clear that this conflict did in fact come from the enemy. He gave himself away at that time, the lying, stealing, counterfeiting mongrel. I had proof positive that all of it was from him...That there was no conflict with God. God was not asking me to lay down any dreams. My dreams and desires were from Him and for Him.

This experience has left me able to discern without a doubt when I am facing crap from the evil one. Darkness and heaviness in my chest and head are not the conviction of the Holy Spirit. They are evidence of being messed with. And I will not be calling God the devil by telling them to shut up and leave. That had been my biggest fear when I was unsure who the voices were.

I like this dude!

Now, that's what I'm talkin' bout!

I wanna meet him, give him a high 5 and say "The Lord is with you, Mighty Warrior!"

The bitter with the sweet...

The same day I saw the sign up for Refuge I received the news that one of my favorite places to meet up with people for chatting and fun is closing its doors on January 17th.

This is the Front Porch Coffee House (affectionately known as Fro Po Co Ho). I have spent hours and hours here.

Denny, Lori and I performed here one night under the name "Esther's Den" and we (if I may brag a bit!) packed the place out - not because we were necessarily polished and perfect but because we have so many wonderful, supportive friends and family. We performed right there in front of that window. And see the little table there on the right - the 2 seater? That is where my friend Jack and I sat to talk about the screenplay that I wrote. He is an awesome writer and he agreed to give me feedback. I couldn't have thought of a better place than Fro Po to meet. The table back there on the far left is where I met with a bunch of high-school friends just this Christmas. And that couch is comfy cozy and a good place to kick back and converse.

This is the counter that you see upon entering the front doors. This is where I have ordered a multitude of my favorite drink that has no name. A cold mocha, caramel concoction with whipped cream on top, swirled with more caramel. I have to get the recipe to keep with me so I can have it made at other places...Not that it would be nearly as good as it is here of course. This is also the counter where my friend Ryan introduced me to the caramel macchiato (sp?)... Another tasty drink. This is where he took the final photograph that appears in this video testimony he created for VWS.

I don't have a picture of the back room but Lori, Steve and I have whittled away many an hour back there on our laptops...This is where one day we decided to break the record of geekness and talk, IM, e-mail and text all at the same time.

All of these beautiful times with the people I love at this one little place called the Front Porch.

I will miss you, Fro Po...Thank you for the memories...

Dreams of a Refuge...

Years ago I had a vision of a coffee house where people could come to meet God in a non-threatening, safe environment with no other agenda except to extend the reality of God's grace and mercy. Somewhere people could hang out, read, listen to music, see some improv, drink great coffee....Be loved as is. This same vision, it turned out had been planted into the minds and hearts of a number of other people...Many of those who "just happened" to wind up together at Vineyard Westside.

We started planning and dreaming and asking God to lead the way. It has been a struggle and a fight to jump through all the hoops and gather the people to make it happen. There have been set backs and times of stagnation. But God is faithful. This afternoon I drove past the old bar that we are rehabbing (as I do twice a day everyday on my commute for work). I saw something that wasn't there this morning...

A literal sign that we're getting close to the dream...


It really is coming true...It's right there in black and tan...What a beautiful sight!

I've gotten a bit out of the loop since the early planning stages. I am kind of useless when it comes to construction. But I'm on deck for library designing and of course getting some improv shows together. It's going to be wonderful. So many plans for this little place. So much we can do to extend the LOVE WINS philosophy to the west side of Cincinnati. Bring it, Lord! We want to be your hands, we want to be your feet we want to be the love you have for those in need.

This is why I do Sozo!

So much of our physical sickness is caused by emotional/spiritual issues. Sometimes it is generational "bondage" that has come down through either the bloodline or the spiritual line...Whatever the issue, where modern medicine has failed (and I am thankful to God for modern medicine - I just think God is the first physician we should seek since he knows best what ails us), God is always willing to show up if we will receive.

Here is an excerpt from an e-mail I received yesterday from a young lady that we ministered to a few weeks back:

Hi Helen!...After seeing you this morning and hearing Tim preach I rememered something very important that I wanted to share with you. After my sozo I had more testing done to see if the medication I had been on worked. My doctor was shocked when all of my tests came back negative to things I previously tested positive for and with great excitement she informed me that I can now conceive my own children...I get to be a mommy and feel my own child of God inside of me. I don't think there is any greater miracle!...Praise God! Just thought I should confirm even more that prayer does work and God is awesome!

God is Good...ALL THE TIME...

Thank you, Jesus, for everything you provided for us.